Bosaso (Somalia Today) — An Emirati base in Somalia’s port city of Bosaso is being used to move battle-hardened Colombian mercenaries into Sudan’s civil war, according to a fighter who says he served there.
His account outlines what he describes as a sophisticated pipeline supplying combatants to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). It adds to mounting evidence that foreign backing is feeding a conflict that has pushed Sudan into a humanitarian disaster, the world’s largest displacement crisis, with millions at risk of famine.
The war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF began in April 2023. It has killed an estimated 150,000 people and displaced more than 12 million, the United Nations says. Civilians are trapped in besieged cities such as El Fasher, where aid has not arrived for months, and children have reportedly been reduced to eating locusts.
The United Arab Emirates has repeatedly and strongly denied arming or supporting any side in Sudan. A UAE government official did not immediately respond to emailed questions on October 14 about the Bosaso base.
The route to war
The Colombian fighter, who requested anonymity and used the alias “Carlos”, gave his testimony to an investigation first published by Bogotá-based La Silla VacÃa and Britain’s The Guardian.
He described a streamlined recruitment process that started with medical checks in Bogotá and a $2,600-a-month contract. From there, he said, he flew through Europe to Ethiopia and then on to a UAE base in Bosaso, Somalia. “I knew absolutely nothing about it, only that it was in Africa,” he said.
After a stint at the Somali base, he and other recruits were flown to Nyala, the capital of South Darfur and a known logistics hub for mercenary operations in Sudan.
Carlos shared photos and videos to support his claims. One geolocated clip shows a fighter firing a mortar on the outskirts of El Fasher. Another, filmed amid heavy gunfire, captures men with Colombian accents discussing the evacuation of a wounded comrade.
Colombia’s decades-long conflict has produced a large pool of experienced veterans. Many trained by the US military, they are in high demand among private military contractors for their skills in jungle and irregular warfare, according to the International Crisis Group.
‘Training them to be killed’Â
Carlos said his first assignment in Sudan was not combat but training new RSF recruits, many of them children.
“The camps had thousands of recruits, some adults, but mostly children, lots and lots of children,” he said. “These are children who have never held a weapon.”
He said his unit taught them to fire assault rifles, machine guns, and rocket-propelled grenades before sending them to the front. “We were training them to go and get killed,” he said, calling the experience “awful and wild.”
Reports of foreign mercenaries in Sudan surfaced in 2024, prompting an apology from Colombia’s foreign ministry. Their presence has been documented around the Zamzam displacement camp, where the RSF is accused of carrying out a massacre.
“We have witnessed with our own eyes a dual crime,” a camp spokesman told the Sudan Tribune, citing displacement by the RSF and “the occupation of the camp by foreign mercenaries.”
Plausible deniability
Analysts say hiring foreign fighters lets state backers shape the battlefield while dodging direct responsibility for potential war crimes.
“Mercenaries give countries good plausible deniability,” said Sean McFate, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and an expert on modern warfare. “When they get captured or killed, you disavow them.”
That approach helps sponsors evade international law and scrutiny for abuses, McFate noted.
For Colombia, the outflow of former soldiers is a persistent problem. President Gustavo Petro has condemned mercenarism as a “trade in men turned into commodities to kill.” But structural issues keep the industry alive: most professional soldiers must retire around age 40, with low pensions and few options to retrain.
“You have 15, 20 years left of active duty time,” said Elizabeth Dickinson, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group. “The support structure for the Colombian retired military is deficient, particularly compared to the offer that’s on the table.”
Carlos, who previously served in Ukraine, said he left Sudan after a pay dispute. As his group of 30 fighters departed, he said, “Flights with 30 more were arriving.”
